Cake Pops

This post is long past due.

A lot has happened in a year, since I last posted.  I moved back down to Huntington Beach.  I'm working at a medical device company.  I'm an official engineer. Woo!  I do important stuff, save lives, ya know, the usual.  I haven't been baking as much...but that will turn around since I've gotten more into photography and I have a new assignment.

My sister (the lovely, Danika) is getting married to a fabulous man (Adam)! I'll be helping out by making some desserts for the wedding reception.  I decided that Cake Pops would be a great option.  They seemed easy enough and I've always wanted to make them.  I've been following Bakerella for a while and now she has a book!  I bought the book and made attempt numero uno at red velvet cake pops.

Here she goes! (haha think of the Mario voice from Super Mario Brothers)

I first got ingredients at Ralph's and Michael's (Michael's has a new Duff line of products for decorating.  I was so overwhelmed and really had to limit myself to only a few).

Gathered all the ingredients

I made the cake the way it says on the box.  

You'll need: Eggs, Water, Oil

Added Eggs and the base started to turn red!

 Mix the batter together.  I needed to do a better job of this.  I think I'll sift it next time.  There were a lot of lumps that I had to get out later.

Also, I'm kind of sweaty looking.  I went to SPX Pilates this morning.  Stephanie killed me.  LOVED IT! :)

I hand crumbled the entire cake.  I think the color just looks fabulous!

I used a cream cheese frosting from the store.  I thought I could make everything from scratch, but for the dry run, I think it was cheaper and better to go with the tried and true method of store bought stuff.  The book says to use 2/3 of the 16oz container.  I eyeballed it but next time I think I'll go about it more methodically and actually measure the amount of frosting and capture that for my notes.  The balls came out a little too moist and I think I'd prefer more a drier cake.

I decided to go with a dark chocolate and a white chocolate.  I decorated with gold hearts, gold sprinkles, white sprinkles and some of the balls even got an edible coat of spray paint!   The orange spray paint isn't quite wedding appropriate but it sure was fun to play with.

This is just the first try.  I'd like to make a couple more batches to get the stick placement down and to get the coating looking a little better.  I need to decide if my sister would like to serve the Cake Pops facing now (like in the picture below) or placed in styrofoam or something and sticking straight up.  I definitely need more chocolate to coat the balls.  I also need to make the ball sizes smaller.  It should have made about 4 dozen and I think I got 3 dozen Cake Pops.  All-in-all, not a bad dry run.  Of course, I'd rather have them taste better than they look.  I'll keep you posted because I'm bringing the Cake Pops to work tomorrow for a nice treat!

It was fun getting back to the blog tonight.  I really enjoy writing and sharing my pictures!

Have a great night!